Bush setting the stage for Iran invasion?

It would appear that Dubya is getting ready to invade Iran. He's been rattling the sabre for months and now there's "intelligence" reports of Iranian made weapons showing up in Iraq. Of course Iran denies this and states that the US has "a history of fabricating evidence". The problem for Bush and Co. is that the Iranians are right about that.

The problem for the Bush administration is that even if their intelligence is correct, their made up pretexts for invading Iraq means that no one's really going to believe them (except possibly Stephen Harper, but that's another story). George could show billboard sized photos of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting on an atomic bomb like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove and most people would have problems believing the "Decider". Amazingly, in an American invasion of Iran, this is the least of Bush's worries.

First off, someone has to sit Bush down and explain to him the meaning of the word "overextended", which is what an invasion of Iran would do to the US military. The US Army is stretched to the limit with Iraq, Afghanistan and its other commitments world wide. To invade Iran would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. The US would have to reduce it's number of commitments which could leave places like South Korea without the large number of US forces stationed there. There's no way that the US could reduce it's commitments in Iraq and still have even the fragile stability in the region hold. Add to this the nature of Iran itself.

Compared to Iraq, Iran is quite differently geographically, politically and socially. In terms of land area, Iran is four times the size of Iraq and for the most part has much more rugged terrain. This makes land invasion a much more daunting prospect. There are twice as many Iranians as there are Iraqis. The current president of Iran was elected in an election where there were opponents who could have also won, so there won't be any great groundswell amongst average Iranians to invite the US for "regime change". These basic factors will make any American invasion of Iran make Iraq look like a picnic. There's no way that the US could go it alone on this one and it's unlikely the international community will tag along for the ride on a timetable that sees an invasion while Bush is still in the White House.

Does this mean that Bush will be deterred from invading Iran? Who knows. Many of the things Bush does seems to come from his and his advisors somewhat warped perceptions of the world and are not necessarily based in reality. This means that the Bush Administration is likely to go ahead with yet another ill-conceived, ill-planed and pointless invasion that will do everything but bring stability to the region. This assumes, of course, that the Bush Administration's goal is stability in the region. What their true motives are is known only to them, and would anyone believe them if they told?